Organic Systematics: Twelve Thoughts on God...'N Stuff

I have long since realized that I’m just not a systematic person.  Never have been, never will be.

Don’t get me wrong—I appreciate order, rules, and ethics.  Sometimes too much!

But I also thrive in a certain amount of disorganization. 

I tell people the reason I enjoyed my dig in Israel so much is that I had been doing archaeology my entire life—to find anything on my desk requires an excavation, so I had already had years of practice.

I almost never write my sermons with any sort of prefabricated outline anymore.  I begin with a sort of thesis statement: what I want the sermon to boil down to in a single sentence, and then I just pray, study, and write (not necessarily in that order).

And the books on my bookshelves adhere to only the barest possible sense of sorting by topic.

All of that works for me.  But it also means that when it comes to trying to nail down exactly what I think and do, I often fall short.  I don’t know how to nail my organic, growing beliefs down.

Which means that I’m really, REALLY bad at systematic theology, which, especially in many traditions, is very much about nailing down—exactly and orderly—what one thinks.

It’s why there are so many different creeds floating around out there.

It’s why we have silly debates like "Is President Obama a Muslim?!" over what constitutes a Christian.

But I realize that I cannot stand from the outside and throw stones at the people who claim to somehow know exactly what a Christian is beyond the believing-in-Jesus-Christ-as-the-Messiah bit.

So…this is a short, haphazard attempt at putting some of my beliefs into single sentences.

Call it a creed if you’d like, but as this is hardly all-inclusive, I wouldn’t dare call it that.

Instead, consider these twelve ideas simply food for thought.  Possibly nutritious, like broccoli, but more likely to be the spiritual equivalent of FunYuns:

*There might be many gods in existence, but there is only one God worthy of worship.

*God is not omnipotent.  Nor did He create the world in six literal 24-hour days.

*In fact, we are still living during the seventh day of the creation.

*Jesus Christ was a radical leader, far more divine in form than any person who has lived before or since.

*His tomb was found empty not because His body had been taken, but because God gave Him new life.

*There is such a thing as hell.  But it does not necessarily consist of fire and brimstone.  Nor, with apologies to Kevin Smith, is it the state of Wisconsin.

*Similarly, there is such a thing as heaven.  But it may not necessarily be fluffy clouds and harps.

*God’s awe-inspiring grace is not the same thing as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

*The Bible in its original form—divine words—is probably inerrant.  But as soon as we humans started getting involved in its dictation, that changed in a big damn hurry.

*It does, though, contain all the necessary instructions for having a right relationship with God.

*There will be a final judgment, but I honestly have no idea when or what it will look like.  Nor do I care that much, since I have basically gone all-in on this one hand.

*And that's okay.

Yours in Christ,

Eric